MOCA Celebrates AFRICOBRA: Messages to the People Artist Reception

Photography by Nathan Valentine on December 6th, 2018 in Art Basel Miami Beach 2018, Lifestyle

Miami, FL – December 6, 2018 – The Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami (MOCA) celebrated the opening of “AFRICOBRA: Messages to the People” during Miami Art Week 2018. MOCA was packed with art aficionados who perused the exhibition while enjoying cocktails and canapés. Guests danced under the stars to the sounds of Wendy Pederson and Jim Gasior from New World School of the Arts and a New World School of the Arts Jazz Ensemble followed by DJ Epps. Guests were able to meet and greet with Curator Jeffreen M. Hayes as well as founding and early members of AFRICOBRA Sherman Beck, Napoleon Jones-Henderson, Jae Jarrell, Wadsworth Jarrell, Carolyn Mims Lawrence, Nelson Stevens and Gerald Williams. AFRICOBRA marks the first Miami Art Week exhibition under the leadership of MOCA’s new director Chana Budgazad Sheldon and reflects a new era at the museum.

The groundbreaking exhibition celebrates the Chicago-based AFRICOBRA collective, in conjunction with the group’s 50th anniversary. Founded in 1968, by Jeff Donaldson, Jae Jarrell, Wadsworth Jarrell, Barbara Jones-Hogu and Gerald Williams, AFRICOBRA, which stands for the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists, created images that helped defined the visual aesthetic of the Black Arts Movement. The exhibition brings together the founding artists with five early members, Sherman Beck, Napoleon Jones-Henderson, Omar Lama, Carolyn Mims Lawrence and Nelson Stevens, to look back at their early contributions to the shaping of AFRICOBRA while presenting the artists’ current works of art. AFRICOBRA’s visual language is defined by the use of text, bright “Coolade” colors, dynamic, gestural markings, and raw, emotive, celebratory images of confident black figures. The exhibition will run through April 7, 2019.